Thanks for posting the video Pluto - will the translated book be available to purchase?
I've never tried ProTrain (I've been building routes in Trainz for years though) but one of the developers of Zusi hires from us occasionally. From having seen RW's rendition of Hillmorton and also my boatyard in their Trent Valley route then I don't think accurate canal modelling is high up on their agenda.

The steamers ran as far as Braunston where they transhipped their cargo to a butty (in the transhipment shed, amazingly) and then returned south with an empty butty, leaving the butty they had towed to Braunston to proceed behind an 'oss.

Over my dead body, and not before!
It wouldn't be simple as it sounds actually - the original sides were pulled round to make the start of the counter and most of the original back end was goosed in 1971 when it was removed (the Bull's Bridge refooting stopped just ahead of the cabin) and it's not healed any in the last 46 years! In truth there'd be very little of it left by the time it had been made good enough to re-use. Happily the rest of the boat was/is in much better condition.
"Lincoln" has a hydraulic drive on the rudder and the hull is unaltered afaik.
What about another station boat - Fern, but that may have had a name change since I owned it? It was the one that BW kept in the Audlem flight for years. That reminds also of Liz - another station boat formerly on Hillmorton section and possibly still with CRT in Brum? Neither of those ever had cabins so may not be eligible for inclusion anyway.

We still have the capability to rebuild these engines (including the fuel systems) but our experience is that unless there is major surgery required to the boat to fit a new engine, then fitting new is the cheaper way forward.
It's long been known round these parts that no diesel should be mollycoddled when being run in, and also that the correct spec. oil (API CC) is crucial.

And don't use anything as thick as 18mm apart from on the floor. 9 or 12mm up to gunwale height, 6 or 9mm on the cabin sides and deckhead or you'll have too much weight too high up and the boat will tend to roll.

My experience of genuine the modern Fenner link belt has always been that it transmits power well, doesn't stretch and is more tolerant of misaligment. However, there's Z section, and also SPZ which is the same top width (10mm) but a different profile (8mm deep rather than 6mm deep) so I'm wondering of you have the wrong profile belt for your pulleys? That would explain the lack of grip and the quick wear rate.
I've also come across plenty of set ups where the alternator pulley has been a different section to the flywheel pulley, so it's worth checking both match. The correct belt when new should sit just proud of the pulley grooves, and not touch the root of the V.

The potential fumes are a good point, and apply equally to sprayfoam.
Rockwool/mineral fibre is a no-no in my book unless someone has come up with a way of stopping it compacting due to engine vibration. We cut a boat in half years ago to stretch it and the cabinside insulation was missing from about the top third where it had slumped. It also holds damp - a vapour barrier will get round the dew point issue, but what happens when you get a leaky window?
Thinsulate doesn't appear to slump, but how long will the glue hold it? As soon as it is not in contact with the steel, there will be potential for condensation to form, and over time this will damage the cabin lining. I'm aware of at least one boat where the glue failed quite early on, after only 2-3 years if my memory is correct. My (admittedly limited) experience of gluing things to steel has taught me that all adhesives of the sort used to glue insulation to steel that I've tried fail quite quickly when exposed to high temperatures such as achieved by a dark coloured cabin on a sunny summer day.
Sprayfoam has a higher r-value for a given thickness than thinsulate and is four or five higher than polystyrene.
For private boats we've used sprayfoam for decades, but on the hireboats we've mostly stayed with polystyrene for one of the reasons cuthound mentions - ease of removal for major repairs. I've got two 4/6 berths in our fleet with identical layouts, one of which is sprayfoamed. There's no problem keeping either one warm (both have Alde 2928s) but the sprayfoamed one uses noticeably less gas so the claim that it is 4-5 times more effective than polystyrene is credible IMHO.
Ultimately, I've reached the conclusion if you are into major welding repairs stripping the cabin lining out is probably a bigger job than hacking the sprayfoam off, so I've capitulated and the last couple of boats we've built for the hire fleet are sprayfoamed. As the future for overplating looks distinctly dim courtesy of RCD2 then I guess in the future we'll just cut the steel out with the sprayfoam still attached....
Interestingly cellotex starts off with an r-value of around twice that of polystyrene, but if what I read is true, it degrades over time (polystyrene doesn't) and after 10 years is no better than polystyrene.

Last time I went up the Pocklington (in a 60'6" boat, for the record) would have been around 1990 and the last navigable pound up to Melbourne basin took us most of the day. It was plenty deep enough but the weed was so thick you couldn't even bow haul through it.
The basin itself was fairly clear - except for sunken maintenance boats which were the only thing to moor to.

It has now been confirmed to me that "Susan" was built at Matty's by their own fitters by someone who worked there at the time. He's now going back through his own photo's and records to see if he can identify what she was made out of.
Those pictures bring back some memories!

Thanks Pete - I'll keep trying to find out what I can from the Matty's angle.
Lawrence - I would guess they didn't keep it long as I know an ex-Bulls bridge fitter from the late 80's and he doesn't remember it. It must have rolled like a pig though!
Is it all possible what you saw was actually Deimos undergoing its second butchery to become the push tug Slough?

I think it's probably fairer to say that GRP was an economy alternative to wooden cabins which were time consuming (therefore expensive) to build. The upmarket early builders (Allen, Braine, Cooper et al) had no truck with pre-fab fibreglass cabins and stayed with timber construction until steel cabins became more popular.
In the early days (up to the mid seventies) steel cabins were unpopular due to the lack of suitable insulation, possibly due to the poor reputation of the Yarwoods cabins amongst boatmen. The first Allens boat built with a steel cabin was in 1971, but plenty more were built after that with wooden tops. I have letters from 1971 relating to the conversion of my own boat at Malcom Braine's yard where the idea of a 3mm steel cabin was mooted, but both Malcolm and my grandfather were concerned about insulation and the decision was made to stick with pine t&g and masonite. Interestingly though, the coachroof was skinned with a fibreglass mat scrim and a layer of gelcoat which kept the masonite in good order and didn't leak in the 25 years or so it was on there for. With hindsight, I suppose we should be grateful no one took a leaf out of BR's book and used blue asbestos in narrowboats!
Anglo-Welsh and Rugby Boatbuilders cabins were done in a different way to the SUC/Teddesley ones. They used pre made (and insulated) panels about 8 feet long (from memory) and each side and the roof panel were seperate sections dropped onto cabin frames. This had a big advantage when the steerer discovered the biggest weakness of fibreglass cabin - bridge holes - but meant that they were much more prone to leaking as there were many joints. The BW hire fleets used to keep panels in stock and you could often find a Rugby Boat in the drydock at Hillmorton Yard having one of the roof and or first sections of the cabin replaced.
The Harborough ones (also run by BW) faird better as they were lower, and had the bridge guards. In the end, the Rugby built boats run by BW out of Nantwich had bridge guards fitted in an effort to ensure that they came out of the other side of Harecastle without extra ventilation. It did make getting off the fore end rather hazardous though.

Pimblott's built a number of steel boats for the BWB hire fleet in the late 60's, and the steel cabins had a lot in common with "Vigilante", an all steel all welded boat built by Yarwoods in 1960. It's the earliest example of an all welded, fully cabined boat I can think of, but technically doesn't count in this context as it was built as an inspection launch.

Thanks Pete,
Do your records give any indication of what happened to "Margaret" when it went on to the South Western Division by any chance please? If it were a motor, it ought to crop on a repair yard record somewhere at some poin although given Gloucester's propensity to turn perfectly good motors into dumb boats, maybe not!
I was recently given some information on Oxford 1 when it was in Matty's ownership by a chap who had been their fitter in the 1970s. Stupidly I didn't think to ask about Susan, but I'm going to try to get in touch him again and see if he has any idea where/what Susan was when they acquired it.
I don't think it was a tug as there was about 50' of original boat - so even it had been cut just behind the bow swim it would have been nearly 60' long as a minimum. It's full width and hard chined, and all of the Harris tugs I've looked at were around 6'6" and round chined, also it's a deeper moulded depth than all the Harris tugs I'm aware of.
Finally, from some odd remnants of brackets and so on under the back deck (which was quite longit looked to have had a very short back cabin and engine room. Ahead of here there was a change in the condition (pitting & corrosion wise) of the footings indicative of an open boat.

Museums..no - let's not go there!
I agree wholeheartedly about it being part of the boat's history. Based on the age of the backactor I think the conversion was done in the late 60s, maybe very early 1970s so she's been a dredger longer than anything else so far. I take your point about recording information - other than your data on the BW workboat fleet, information about many of them seems very scant indeed.
I don't have access to the BCN gauging records so a question to Ed or Pete if I may? How does the information for Ben compare to that of Margaret and when was Ben built please?